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Alistair Wise pops up at Yellow, Sydney.

Sweet Envy's Alistair Wise brings his crackle and pop to Yellow restaurant in Sydney...

Alistair Wise of Sweet Envy, Hobart

Courtesy of Alistair Wise

The man behind our favourite Tasmanian baked goods is coming to Sydney this month. Hobart-based pâtissièr extraordinaire Alistair Wise will bring Sweet Envy’s crackle and pop to Yellow restaurant for one night only, 19 October. But don’t expect sweets and sweets alone.

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“They said you can just do dessert, but I might never get the chance to do this again,” says Wise. “I’m going to play on the dark side where the hot people play.”

So is this Sydney’s chance to get a bite of Wise’s famed pecan sticky buns? Well, no. Not quite.

“They’re a good breakfast pastry – and I’m sure someone wants to put it on top of a freak-shake somewhere,” he says, “but this is more inspired by things we do in the shop. Taking one thing and turning it into something totally new.”

The five-course set menu at Yellow will include dishes such as soft-serve daikon cake with sardine, samphire and XO; the recipes for the cake and the XO were both taught to Wise by fellow Hobart chef Gordon Tso of Me Wah. “The daikon cake is really, really soft, almost like a jelly,” says Wise. “I’ve been playing around with this cool batter that’s out of a soda siphon, too. It’s glassy and crisp, and perfect with oily fish.”

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Sadly, Wise’s old-school ice-cream truck, Big Bessie, won’t be along for the ride, but there’ll still be plenty of nostalgia on show – particularly when dessert rolls around. “It’s basically like eating my childhood,” he says.

Porridge topped with candy cap mushroom ice-cream will kick the sweetness off, followed by a second dessert of cherry custard with house-made cubeb pepper and mint Ice Magic. “Liquid nitrogen, yeah okay, cool. But Ice Magic? Crack!”

Wise has also been playing around with canapés and petits fours such as canelés with char siu pork (“I see your bao and raise you a canelé”) and Whisky Sour-flavoured “adult gummy bears”.

And despite all this fondness for play, the chef assures us that it’s still about serious cooking. The drinks offering is yet to be decided on, but there’s talk of aged sake, one of Wise’s new favourite things.

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“It can’t all be anarchy and mayhem,” he says. “It’s a restaurant. I have to try and feed people as well.”

Alistair Wise pops up at Yellow on 19 October. Tickets are $90 per person for five-courses. Yellow, 57 Macleay St, Potts Point, NSW, (02) 9332 2344.

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